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To: Chuckles_Bee who wrote (72977)	12/29/2007 8:43:59 AM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 116555

go on line to attorney general office inyour state and file a complaint.. they may check out for you if unfair practices. the other alternative is contact a dozen more providers to see if they are more competitive.. some are cheaper than company group programs. also file complaint with your employee relations department if company policy.. the insurance company is only an administrator for the company.. the company can overrule anything regarding to medical insurance. been there done that.

To: Chuckles_Bee who wrote (72977)	12/29/2007 9:09:17 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 116555

Look to Germany. "passed another milestone on the way toward a U.S.-style consumer society when it dropped strict national store-closing laws last year, leaving the rules up to the states. In many regions, stores can now open or close whenever they want." online.wsj.com Shops exists to supply the market not to provide cushy jobs.

To: Chuckles_Bee who wrote (72977)	12/29/2007 9:11:55 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 116555

Sarkozy urges France to work harder. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is used to pulling in the crowds. But even he must have been surprised that after seven months in power he managed to draw a record audience for his live televised interview on Thursday night. Far from being an unalloyed sign of affection - opinion polls indicate that any warmth for the president may be fading fast - the 19m people who tuned in wanted to hear what he planned to do about their declining spending power. And for many the message was disappointing: no increase in spending power without an increase in work. Trapped between growing discontent over the rising cost of living and limited state resources, Mr Sarkozy nimbly pushed the responsibility for boosting spending power back on to the shoulders of employers and their workers. By far the most important move was to offer companies the possibility of abolishing the constraints of the 35-hour week in return for higher wages and agreement from the employees concerned. Medef, the powerful employers' union, has long called for the legal limit on working hours to be abolished, in favour of individual company negotiations with their workforce. On Friday the lobby group hailed the president's declaration as a "fundamental change" that would open new possibilities for France's sluggish economy. "The 35-hour week was a catastrophe," said one Medef member. "This gives each company the freedom to act. It is a symbolic change." However, small companies are more cautious about the significance of Mr Sarkozy's gesture. Everything depends on the cost, says Jean-François Roubaud, president of the CGPME, the small companies' lobby group. "If it means that a small company can get its workers to 39 hours a week only by increasing the wage bill proportionately, then there will be few companies that can afford that," he said. Mr Roubaud, a construction entrepreneur, was more optimistic about plans to allow employers to "buy back" on a tax-free basis extra leave built up by employees. "Small companies would prefer that because it increases production," Mr Rombaud said. "If I could buy back time off to keep my workers from taking leave every two months, that would suit me very well." Under the current system, employees working more than 35 hours a week can bank their overtime hours to take as leave. Mr Sarkozy also announced changes to the regulated system of rent increases and promised to allow employees to cash-in up to €10,000 ($14,500, £7,000) tax free from company savings schemes. But the danger is that in a country of determined savers, employees will transfer the cash to another scheme. Laurence Boone, an economist at Barclays Capital, estimates that the last time the government granted such an exemption "about €7bn were unfrozen, but two-thirds of this went into other saving vehicles. Overall, only about €2bn or 0.15 per cent of GDP went into higher consumption."